science rejects the concept. that's why when people ascribe biological certainties to race, they sound racist, but race is real as a social construct. it has so much social and political meaning and it's shaped so much of society that even if you think you're color blind, the perceptions of race are so baked into society you can't even easily super seisedem by being myopic. as dr. lopez once wrote, social meanings connect our faces to our souls, race is neither an essence nor an illusion but rather an ongoing contradictory self-reinforcing process subject to the macro forces of social and political struggle and the microeffects of daily decisions. that does to for the cycle. do you have any good on the show today? >> yes and you have stolen 40 seconds of my show and i'm not

going to talk to you. good news for america fuels a republican conspiracy theory bigger than alien abduction. ♪ >> this morning we found out that the unemployment rate has fallen to its lowest level since i took office. >> there is widespread mistrust of this report and these numbers. >> the numbers just don't match. >> you are saying that the administration is actively manipulating that data, correct? >> well, absolutely. >> good news for america's working men and women is bad news for some. >> i told you they'd get it under 8%. they did. you can let america decide. >> ki just give the data and then we can talk about this conspiracy. >> but a ray of hope for the president. >> this country has come too far to turn back now. >> and the country. >> if you'll vote for me in november, we'll win virginia

again. we'll finish what we started. ♪ >> we begin with a pleasant october surprise, unexpectedly strong jobs numbers out this morning offering a shot of optimism and encouragement for both american workers and for the president's re-election bid. the september jobs report showing that employers added 114,000 new jobs. the unemployment rate falling to 7.8%. the lowest it's been since january 2009. adding to the positive news, job gains were revised upward by 40,000 for july and by 46,000 for august. casting the summer jobs picture in a much warmer glow overall and the president took the news to battleground virginia this morning where it was greeted with an enthusiastic cheer.

>> the unemployment rate has fallen to its lowest level since i took office. more americans entered the workforce, more people are getting jobs. today's news certainly is not an excuse to try to talk down the economy to score a few political points. it's a reminder that this country has come too far to turn back now. >> you heard the president. it's no day to talk down the economy to score political points. but shadowing the president in virginia, mitt romney waited nine minutes deep into his scintillating stump speech before even mentioning the big news of the day, delivering it like a speech at a funeral. >> there were fewer new jobs created this month than last month, and the unemployment rate, as you know, to this year has come down very, very slowly. of course, even those that have

jobs are having tough times. >> okay. but give mr. romney credit because he actually admits the unemployment rate did come down. unlike prominent conservative jack welch who tweeted this morning, unbelievable jobs numbers. these chicago guys will do anything. can't debate, so change numbers. okay. tuesday he was a ruthless race baiter. yesterday he was a feckless delivery boy. today he's don corleone, and there's more where that came from. congressman west, take it away. >> you are alleging specifically that the president is engaging in a cover-up of the data. you are saying that the administration is actively manipulating that data, correct? >> well, absolutely. >> good news is all this conspiracy may open up even more jobs. demand for the manufacture and

sale of tin foil is increasing as we speak. essential material for all those tin hats. here in new york jonathan alter, a columnist for bloomberg view and democratic strategist julian epstein and john harwood, chief washington correspondent and political writer for "the new york times." julian, so, the bureau of labor statistics is now to be lumped in with false memory syndrome, satanic abuse, and the abduction of children byu fos in terms of its accuracy and trustworthy iness? >> we've talked about the archie bunker wing of the waert. now we have the paranoid paranormal wing of the party. this is the same group of people that don't believe in evolution. this is the same group of people that don't believe in climate change. these are the same people who are complaining about the poll numbers being biased, and now they're complaining about a methodology that is very open and transparent and that has been used for decades in terms

of computing the employment numbers. and, you know, this is to democrats this is music to our ears. when you start complaining about the polls and you start complaining about employment number methodology, it's a very, very clear sign that the other side is losing the debate and they have to go to these kind of, you know, bush league tactic that is don't persuade anybody and, you know, this is very, very good news for us. it's a big sign these guys are losing the debate. >> before i ask you a question, john, i need to explain that the poltergeist has actually taken john harwood from us so he's not here. but the job numbers were accurate when they were above 8%, but the moment they went below, they are fraudulent and part of a conspiracy run by the mafia in chicago. >> it's one thing for al alen west, a whack job congressman from florida, and other donald trump-type conspiracy theorists on the fringe to be buy into

this nonsense but it was really disturbing when jack welch, who was a tremendously effective ceo of general electric for many years, that he would buy into this is really a sign that the pro-romney part of the american establishment is flipping out now and actually saying things that, you know, have no evidence behind them, and if you're going to say pigs can fly, you need irrefutable pictures of the pigs flying, otherwise you shouldn't say it. this is a problem with twitter. people feel like they can say anything even if there's no evidence for what they're saying. >> allijulian, are we supposed believe that multiple public servants and statistic that is are kept securely fastened until their day of release have someone been manipulated by the chicago half ya. >> look, there's statistics that aren't even arguable here. when obama came in as we've discussed, we were losing 800,000, we're now gaining somewhere between 100,000 and

200,000 jobs a month. that's a positive swing of 1 million a month. when obama game in we are at negative 9 gdp. now we're at 2, maybe 3. positive swing of 12. the romney thesis is that the economy was getting worse. it was obama's fault, and romney was mr. fix-it. and in each of those tenets it seemed to me they have gone out the window. i think obama will start asking where is the beef. the numbers are very clear about the economic turnaround since he's been president. he has an economic jobs recovery act now which by everybody's reckoning would create somewhere between 1 million and 2 million jobs. on the other hand, you have romney who has no economic plan whatsoever other than to say i want to cut taxes below the 15% ofg dp that they are right now, and then the other night he says, well, i don't want to actually cut the actual tax rate, i want to cut rates and then i want to increase deductions and give us effectively the same amount of taxes coming into the economy which leaves him with an

unutterly incoherent record. with romney you have nothing and i think the message you will start hearing next week is going back to that old mondale commercial, where is the beef, show us the beef, because there ain't none there. >> john, before we eviscerate mitt romney entirely, he hasn't jumped on the bandwagon, though he did downplay the jobless rate, and he misstated the reason behind it. take a listen to this, john. >> the reason it's come down this year is primarily due to the fact that more and more people have just stopped looking for work. >> in fact, the unemployment rate fell because more people were working. i mean, this man's not capable of telling the truth about anything. >> well, he's actually correct in some past months but not in today's job. >> but he was speaking today. >> and so what he's doing now is he's talking down the economy, strictly for political purposes. and if barack obama can't do something with that in the next

debate, then there's really some problem with his debate performance because this is a slow one coming in over the plate. the trouble that the president has in talking about the whole subject is he can't be too optimistic -- of course. >> -- because in the past what's happened is when he's gotten too far ahead of himself in saying that things are looking rosy, there are still a lot of people out there who are hurting and they don't want to hear that. the president has to kind of walk a fine line. but any rational person should know when there's signs of hope, to run them down and minimize them and tell people that it's not good news isn't helpful for anybody except maybe your political fortunes. >> incapable of celebrating good news. julian, jonathan, thank you both. neck, mitt walks his words backwards. >> let me see if i can come up with a two-minute answer that might have been more effective. liar! lie, lie, lie, liar, lie, lie,

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♪ [ male announcer ] or visit fidelitylife.com to secure your family's future today. as i point out, i recognize that among those that pay no tax, approximately 47% of americans, i'm not likely to be highly successful with the message of lowering taxes. you know, it's not elegantly stated. let me put it that way. i'm speaking off the cuff in response to a question. i have a very effective campaign that's doing a very good job, but not everything i say is elegant. >> mitt romney may have waited nine minutes before he stooped to talk about today's solid job numbers, but that's nothing because it took him 18 days to finally state the obvious about his videotaped comments where he dismissed 47% of the population.

and while it's no apology, i guess better late than never. >> in a campaign with 100s if not thousands of speeches, now and then you will say something that doesn't come out right. in this time i said something that's completely wrong. >> joining us from washington is michelle cottle correspondent for news week and jonathan capehart, an opinion writer for "the washington post." john, if i might begin with you, psychological studies tell us that we tend to make the most radical changes in our lives up until our 23rd birthday on average, but thereafter it gets increasingly difficult to change. the republican nominee is 65. after hearing him denigrate half the population, are we supposed to believe he now feels nothing but affection for all of us. >> epiphany is probably that the election is 32 days away, and if

he hopes to win, he's got to change a whole lot of things about himself and his message to make that happen. i mean, quite frankly, i'm mystified by the mitt romney we saw at the debate and the mitt romney who is now saying that he was completely wrong about trashing 47% of the country. how is it possible that a man who has been running for president for six years is having these personality conversions all within the span of a few days or a few hours. >> that's a very good question, john. i wish i could answer that. michelle, what is romney actually saying he was wrong about? that he got the number wrong? that it's actually 46% of people that he believes are entitled to health care, food, housing, you name it? what exactly is he saying was wrong? >> well, we don't actually know because he was very smart. he picked a friendly interviewer who is not going to push him too hard on exactly what he was wrong about. was he wrong to say it, wrong to get caught saying it, was he

wrong to think it? these are not things that shean hannity and the fox team are going to push him on, but what he is right about is that he can't let that sit out there, and he picked a time when he thought he had a relatively strong position coming out of the debate so he wouldn't look like he was on the ropes. this is all part of his rehabilitation campaign wherever running to the right, no you he's got to reach out and try to grab the moderates. >> okay. well, jonathan, i'd like to point out there's only one number romney actually cares about. here he is a day after the tape first aired. listen to this, john. >> i need to get 50.1% of americans behind me. >> i need to get 50.1% or more. well, we were talking about a campaign and how he's going to get close to half the vote. i'm going to get half the vote approximately i hope. i want to get 50.1% or more. >> so, i don't knjohn, do you ts are buying this centrist mitt

romney who says he's been for the 100% because he's been seeing this for ages, that he only neds 51%. >> 50.1%. he just needs just that much to have him win the election. you can't change the narrative and you can't change the direction of your campaign and what people think of your campaign with one friendly interview on a rival network. it just doesn't happen that way. and also maybe what governor romney is trying to do is to try to sway some of those folks who might be thinking of going through the early voting process and more than half the country, folks who are voting right now to try to convince them that, hey, that guy we saw at the debate on wednesday isn't as bad as you thought and that 47% thing, he's apologized so let me vote for him. the only problem is there are 32 more days to go. as we sift through really the lies that he told during the debate and people get to see that, well, the mitt romney you

saw on wednesday is not the mitt romney who has been campaigning all this time, i'm not sure how effective that apology to the 47% is going to be. >> right. michelle, another number mitt romney is not fond of talking about is 7.8%, the new unemployment figure. here is how he spun that into bad news earlier today. listen to this. >> the reason it's come down this year is primarily due to the fact that more and more people have just stopped looking for work. if you just drop out altogether, why, you're no longer part of the employment statistics so it looks like unemployment is getting better. >> i have never seen a man lie with such skill. i mean, that number had been in decline until today. it's the highest it's been since may 2010, and it hasn't been higher since august 2009, and yet he goes out there and he says something that is a blatant untruth. i mean, he's apologized last night for making a mistake or

apologized for something on the 47% and then today back to his old ways. here is another lie. >> well, it's necessary. the conventional wisdom has been if the unemployment rate dropped below 8%, then obama was pretty much in the cat bird seat and now it has, and the republicans have been hitting him all along for not being able to get it below that. romney has got to downplay this. he's got to spin it as bad news anyway. he doesn't really have much of a choice. >> jonathan capehart and michelle cottle, thank you both for your contribution with us this afternoon. >> thanks, martin. stay with us. much more ahead. >> governor romney is going to let wall street run wild again but he's going to bring the hammer down on sesame street. you want me to save big bird? [ female announcer ] did you know the average person smiles more than 50 times a day?

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after a campaign stop in virginia this morning, president obama energized by today's positive unemployment numbers moved on to rainy ohio where he has just spoken at cleveland state university and slammed mitt romney for trying to throw a wet blanket on the good news. wris tin welker is traveling with the president and joins us. the president has been traveling and speaking at multiple events since wednesday night. >> reporter: that's absolutely right, martin, and he certainly had an extra spring in his step today because of those unemployment figures, which you mentioned, the lowest unemployment rate that we have seen under this president, and that is a fact that he touted today in virginia and again here in ohio, both key swing states, and ohio has already started early voting. he's sort of using the figures to try to turn the page on what many are describing as a

lackluster debate performance this past wednesday. you talk about the fact he's being more energized, also being more aggressive going after mitt romney sort of retroactively rebutting some of the points romney brought up on wednesday night. points he probably would have liked to have made wednesday night, but he's rolling them out now. one of those points taking issue with romney's claim that he would slash the deficit by trimming funding to public television, including big bird. of course, that's become a big laugh line now. president obama saying elmo better watch out. he also had a new line of attack today. he brought up the fact that mitt romney had essentially said his health care plan would include funding pre-existing conditions. that's a claim that the romney campaign has walked back. today president obama said that mitt romney was fact checked by his own campaign, so we're seeing a feistier more aggressive president obama certainly than we saw on wednesday night. >> and the president's advisers,

kristin, say that they will likely make some adjustments before the next debate. is it fair to assume that the president may become slightly more aggressive at the next one? >> reporter: i think that it's a fairly safe assumption. one of his top advisers said they're going to take a hard look at the debate as they try to retool their strategy moving forward, but here is the main reason why i think that, martin. the night of the debate i was there with his advisers, and they said, look, the pundits, the journalists were being too hard on the president, we're sort of reading this through an incorrect lens. they say the people just wanted to hear the facts, wanted to hear what the president's policies were. i have been traveling with the president for the past two days, i can tell new speaking to his supporters, they have said they wanted to see a more aggressive president obama on wednesday night, that they wanted him to directly engage mitt romney more than he had. i think those are some comments that the president and his team will take into consideration before the next debate.

>> nbc's kristin welker, go inside and get dry, kristin. thank you so much. >> thanks. >> stay with us. the day's "top lines" are coming up. [ man ] ring ring... progresso this reduced sodium soup says it may help lower cholesterol, how does it work? you just have to eat it as part of your heart healthy diet. step 1. eat the soup. all those veggies and beans, that's what may help lower your cholesterol and -- well that's easy [ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup.

the hannity bombshell that wasn't. romney leaves conservative giddy, and now tickle me elmo. here are today's "top lines." >> first presidential debate. >> the up ender in denver. >> he's a good debater. >> this is mitt's first time. >> who going to have the best zingers. >> i will interrupt and say that's what she said. >> i think i have some pretty good zingers. >> he has to come across as a regular guy. >> who is going to score the punches. >> they're making me do my homework. >> he's very well prepared. jed the burrito bowl. >> a bombshell is about to be dropped. racially charged rhetoric. what do you conclude? >> i'm not exactly sure.

>> some desperate mother [ bleep ]. >> good afternoon from denver. >> happy anniversary. >> i'm sure this was the most romantic place you could imagine. kroo kick him in the balls. >> i have five boys. i'm used to saying something that's not always true. >> he's been asked over 100 times how you would close those deductions. >> make up a number. >> big, bold idea is never mind. >> i think i get the last word. >> hush child. >> harvard law school versus harvard business school. >> zing. >> michelle wanted to go home with mitt. >> two-minute answer that might have been more effective. liar! >> i like pbs, i love big bird. >> bring down the hammer on sesame street. >> it's been chris man today. i've been in giggle snort mode. >> he has been lazy. >> did you mean to call barack obama lazy. >> yes. >> this spirited fellow who claimed to be mitt romney. the mitt romney we all know, he does not want to be held accountable for the real mitt romney's decisions. >> their campaign strategy was

to kill romney, hopefully not literally. >> a tap dance and a two-step. >> mitt, mitt, mitt romney style. >> 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. >> said something that's completely wrong. >> only 30% want the welfare state. >> 7.8%, that politically is great news. >> we're moving forward. >> let's get right to our panel now. we're joined by my colleague toure who is the co-host of "the cycle" and goldie taylor who is in atlanta. good afternoon to both of you. toure we have been talking about sean hannity's world exclusive with paul ryan and mitt romney last night but what about the bombshell videos that mr. hannity had. why didn't he even mention them last night? >> well, mitt romney surely doesn't want to have anything to do. he wants his fingerprints completely off of those. so surely they said, hey, don't bring that up. that stuff is ugly. we've already got in enough trouble for that. we don't want to have anything to do with that. of course, they leave that all on the side. they have enough trouble with

their own secret videos that they're still struggling with. don't let anybody tell you the 47% video is not having an effect. it is absolutely having an affect on this election, and anything that romney says after that to try to say i am caring, i care about the 100%, we saw what you really said and what you really meant. we know who you really are. so we don't have to ask anymore. we have the answer. >> okay, goldie, we have conspiracy theories on the polls, conspiracy theories on the unemployment number. let's not forget the conspiracy of libya where mr. romney has suggested the white house has intentionally mislead the nations. republicans appear to have more conspiracy theories than r. ron hubbard. >> that's about right but this reminds me of like the investigators who are still searching for jimmy hoffa's body. it just doesn't exist now. at the end of the day, you know, i don't know if there's anything that this particular republican electorate believes in, whether

it's global warming or the unemployment numbers or polling. >> conspiracy, conspiracy, conspiracy, conspiracy. out of chicago, conspiracy. >> we're out to fix an election. you know, voter suppression. >> conspiracy. >> the republicans are involved in the voter fraud. you know, as toure said, white folks be trippin. but toure certainly proved, you know, brothers can trip, too. case one, allen west. i mean, a guy who really ought to be in jail on 11 years' worth of assault out of the military is now serving in the united states house of representatives and talking smack every day of the week. >> but they live in an alternate reality which is why we get these conspiracy theories. they don't want to blame their ideology which is moss tile to blacks, gays, womens, hispanics. they have a shrinking tent. if you just have a bunch of white people you will come up

with alternate reals that don't make sense. we can't play logic to these things because we are not god so we can't hit a straight lick with a crooked stick. >> the great allen west, sober congressman of this national, has offered us some further comments. >> do you realize how difficult it is -- would it be for someone in theory to pull off that kind of conspiracy given the number of people in the labor department, given the number of surveyors who are out there, one of whom would probably say, wait a minute, that's not the right number? >> well, if you would stop yelling in my ear and allow me to answer your questions, maybe we could get to the bottom of this. >> so there you have it, goldie. >> the man with the high top fade has the answer. what's going on? >> you got to wonder when allen west is going to take out his pistol and shoot it past somebody's head to make them tell him the truth. allen west is a joke in and of himself and i actually cannot wait until november 6th because i'm one of those people who

doesn't believe he's going to see the inside of the house of representatives again when patrick murphy gets finished with him. so i think this is the last we're going to see of him. so i'm hoping he's breathing his last breath. >> okay. but thief been dealing with an imagined obama since day one who they hate, who they declared a failure i believe on day two. >> i believe that individual was not born in the united states, is a muslim, and a socialist. >> exactly. if they would deal with the actual obama, then there would be reasonable critiques to be had, but when you say he's a horrible person who is not from america who has a secret plan, who is a total failure, that does not deal with real and most americans understand that's not who actually is running, and that's why you're not able to crack 47%. >> but here is the problem. it's not just that they're fighting an imaginary president. mr. romney himself is an imaginary clone of himself. >> absolutely. >> so in "top lines" moments -- sorry, not in "top lines", i want you to listen to romney and how he talks about his health

care plan and how it covers pre-existing conditions. take a listen to this. sorry, i don't have the sound. forgive me. what was your reaction to that? >> my reaction was this president could not desight which romney was going to show up. the romney on the campaign trail the last 18 months or the mitt romney who was governor of massachusetts. neither one showed up the other night. a brand new mitt showed up with a brand new story to spin. he doesn't have an etch akevin. he has a sit and spin. at the end of the day, an inveterate liar, lie upon lie upon lie, he doesn't even have a health care plan let alone one that extends benefits to people who have pre-existing conditions or extends benefits to children who are too old to be on their parents' health care policies. and so i don't know where this is coming from. we've got a brand new mitt we're dealing with, but i understand that in these next two debates he will be dealt with handily. >> very quickly.

>> not only is he different with policy, different emotionally. we have to go back to teddy kennedy. he's not pro-choice, no the be a tie-choice, he's mull. choice. >> toure, goldie, you have stolen enough of my time on the broadcast. next, chris matthews sits down with jack welch. and today's jobs reports. next, what the positive jobs numbers mean for america and this presidential election. stay with us. [ female announcer ] ready for a taste of what's hot? check out the latest collection of snacks from lean cuisine. creamy spinach artichoke dip, crispy garlic chicken spring rolls.

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romney is faltering in the swing states, now they're falsifying the unemployment nments to make it look like the economy is recovering. whatever next? an election where the republican vote is suppressed by voter i.d. laws and the president wins a second term? let's ask msnbc policy analyst ezra klein of the "washington post." good afternoon, ezra. i'm glad you're here. it needs a man of your intellect to unravel this complex and comprehensive conspiracy. here is the one question we keep hearing today. take a listen to this, ezra. >> how do you drop a third in the overall number and only add about 100,000 jobs? >> how did we get a drop of one-third in the unemployment rate? >> well, we didn't get a drop of one-third. the unemployment rate went down 0.3 of 1%. that's how much we're talking about here. a lot of this is because we have this weird psychological fixation on this line at 8% and

it went under that, but we've had a 0.2 drop earlier, we had a 0.4 of a percentage drop a year ago. this is not some incredibly weird aberration we need to explain. it's not even, frankly, that good of a number. 7.8% is not great. could go up to 7.9% or 8% next month. the idea we've had an incredibly wonderful labor report that we have to figure out a conspiracy to explain is out of line with the actual numbers. it's 0.3 of one percentage point. >> but there's been a chorus of conspiracy theorys in relation to these numbers such that you yourself have been forced to write a story that begins with the following line, "we've hit that moment in the election when people begin to lose their minds." you can't possibly mean that a man as erudite as allen west is losing his marbles. >> i would never imply that, but there is -- as you say, there's been this emergent conspiracy

theory. i call them the jobbers, and they've just sort -- >> the jobbers. >> they misunderstood the entire nature of this. you had this drop, it's not a huge drop, not something we haven't seen before, and it's explained internal in the polling. what you had in the last month was a very high increase of people got part-time jobs, about 550,000 people appear to have gotten part-time jobs in the household survey which is different than the payroll survey where you hear the 114,000 number. this appears to have been happening every year about this time. a year around about 500,000 people got part-time jobs, a year before, around 50,000. it's reason to believe it has to do with people going back to school and getting jobs. there's a lot of folks in the younger age groups that have gotten employed. this isn't a huge surprise. we have been seeing significant drops in the unemployment rate in the fall months in the last couple years, been seeing similar internal numbers in the last couple years. the folks who are freaking out about this, i don't really know

whether or not it is just, as i say, because people are losing their minds over the lex, or they're cynically trying to so distrust about a slight improvement in the labor market, but either way there's no reason whatsoever to give any credence to this ridiculous conspiracy mongering. >> ezra klein, speaking clearly and soundly, and don't forget that ezra is guest hosting "the lost word" tonight at 10:00 p.m. good luck and thank you. >> thank you. next, beware of the biden. stay with us. want to try to crack it? yeah, that's the way to do it! now we need a little bit more... a little bit more vanilla? this is great! [ male announcer ] at humana, we believe there's never been a better time to share your passions... because the results... are you having fun doing this? yeah. that's a very nice cake! [ male announcer ] well, you can't beat them. [ giggles ] ohh! you got something huh? whoa... [ male announcer ] humana understands the value of spending time together that's a lot of work getting that one in! let's go see the birdies. [ male announcer ] one on one,

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according to mitt romney, his running mate, paul ryan, is the intellectual leader of the republican party. ryan is also chairman of the house budget committee which make it is all the more bewildering that when he's invited to explain his budget, the one that mitt romney has endorsed, well, mr. ryan appears to lose his voice. however, vice president joe biden isn't afraid to tell a

hard truth. >> obama and biden want to raise tacks by $8 trillion. guess what? yes, we do in one regard. we want to let that trillion dollar tax cut expire so the middle class doesn't have to bear the burden of all that money going to the super wealthy. >> karen finney is an msnbc political analyst and former dnc communications director and hogan giddily is the former communications director for the rick santorum campaign. welcome to both of you. kar karen, to quote jack nicholson in "a few good men" romney and ryan, they just can't handle the truth can they? >> they can't. the level of intellectual dishonesty, i use the wort intellectual half joking, they took the vice president's comments and truncated them without the most important part, which has been the most important part of what the president has been talking about, what democrats have been talking about, and that is the idea that those at the top should be doing their fair

share, and that's something that i guess all of the sudden now romney and ryan, they don't quite say it that way, but they're sort of saying, well, we're not going to mess with their tacks but we're going to, you know, help the middle class and we're going to, you know, fire big bird to get it all done. >> yeah, that's right. hogan, biden tells the truth, and ryan calls him out for, quote, dropping the veil and using candor. i mean, it's as if truth has become a four-letter word for the romney campaign. >> well, i wouldn't say that, but, look, i think there was a problem with the romney/ryan pick right off the bat, and that was ryan had a plan that was obviously well-publicized, that was defeated, but since mitt romney was short on specifics in his plan, the media immediately filled in the holes and the gaps in romney's plan with ryan's old plan. >> but hogan, i thought -- >> they couldn't answer the question. >> hogan, just before you answer fully though, my understanding was that mitt romney had

embraced ball ryan's budget. indeed, i heard him say that. so i think it's slightly inaccurate to suggest that somehow mitt romney has been separate from paul ryan. he's embraced paul ryan's budget. >> well, if i'm not mistaken, that, too, was in a primary that in a sense they were asking would you embrace his plan and romney said, yeah, it's a good plan, but as the nominee obviously, you have your own plan. the raub is that plan was a little bit short on specifics, shall we say, and so they filled the gaps smartly so done by the democrats by the way, they filled the gaps with ryan's plan to try to make romney's plan appear to be out of touch with the mainstream. >> hogan, hold on though because that's not altogether true because part of the problem that the romney/ryan/ryan/romney however you want to say it, they were asked a very simple obvious question. okay, governor romney, how would your plan differ? crickets. there was no answer. i mean, it was the most obvious

question. having endorsed ryan's plan in the primary, you then bring him on the ticket. it's not an unfair question to say to governor romney and to congressman ryan, okay, so you're saying you're going to have your own plan. okay. how is it going to differ? give us some specifics. >> karen, good luck with waiting for an answer to that. but i'd like you to answer this. the vice presidential debate this coming thursday, the bar has been set pretty high for paul ryan. he's the numbers guy and the intellectual leader of the party, so i'm assuming, karen, that he will just destroy joe biden. >> yeah, good luck with that one, paul ryan. i sure hope he's going to go in there and think he can do that. i love joe biden and this is the guy to take paul ryan down on a number of levels. he's going to have to defend himself and there's going to be plenty of time if he wants to walk through any kind of numbers. i'm sure we can get out a whiteboard and pen and write it down. i'm sure biden will give him all the time he needs to walk through the numbers. there's still a huge liable for

the romney/ryan ticket, and that is this issue of medicare and what they would do in these tax breaks, and i really believe that joe biden is going to be able to hold paul ryan's feet to the fire in a way that we have not yet seen. >> okay, hogan, so karen says that joe biden is going to literally pummel this man and knock him out in about the second round. what's your assessment of the fourthcoming debate, hogan? >> i'm not sure if it will be the second round but joe biden will definitely throw a whole lot more punches than barack obama did. i'm pretty confident that joe biden will be the attack dog in this. i think he's going to try to pin ryan down on a lot of specifics. ryan had a little bit of trouble answering those specifics in various interviews up until this point. i don't think that's shocking to anybody on this network for sure, but he's going to have -- >> oh! >> he's going to have a chance to look sharp, to look strong, and to answer the vice president and to outline the plan that mitt romney or undergird the plan that mitt romney talked about. the problem is i don't think he's going to be able to levy

things and go unchallenged. biden is going to hold his feet to the fire, no question. >> now, let me show you what happens when paul ryan runs out on a sean hannity interview early. take a listen, both of you. >> thank you for being with us, governor romney stays with us. >> thanks. we've got 12,000 people out here excited to see us. >> 12,000 people, we only have 4 million people that want to see you so we're competing. >> did the numbers guy really trade 4 million people and 12,000 and inassault sean hannity at the same time. >> that was a little insulting but sean hannity probably shouldn't have said that. that was slightly arrogant for him to say, too. fox news, no questions, the jumping off point for a lot of campaigns. i remember on the santorum campaign we had to stop an event with 20,000 people there to do a greta interview late at night because we knew the voyeurshu viewership would be more on" that venue. i don't know why he wanted to do

that. i'm sure there were people who wanted to pat him on the back. but that's no big deal. he made the choice and he has to live with it. >> hogan, karen, thank you both and have great weekends. >> you, too. >> we'll be right back. ♪ [ male announcer ] you've reached the age where you don't back down from a challenge. this is the age of knowing how to make things happen. so, why let erectile dysfunction get in your way? talk to your doctor about viagra. 20 million men already have. ask your doctor if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take viagra if you take nitrates for chest pain; it may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. side effects include headache, flushing, upset stomach, and abnormal vision. to avoid long-term injury, seek immediate medical help for an erection lasting more than four hours. stop taking viagra and call your doctor right away if you experience a sudden decrease or loss

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that will be here for you now -- and down the road. i have a lifetime of experience. so i know how important that is. progresso. in what world do potatoes, bacon and cheese add up to 100 calories? your world. ♪ [ whispers ] real bacon... creamy cheese... 100 calories... [ chef ] ma'am [ male announcer ] progresso. you gotta taste this soup. it's time now to "clear the air." and mitt romney has managed to insult a lot of people during this campaign, from his comments about the 47% to have insulting the intelligence of the entire nation by repeatedly lying during the first debate. but i have a feeling that the person who would be most insuted by mitt romney would probably be his own late father. when george romney launched his own campaign to run for the presidency in 1968, he released 12 years of tax returns because he believed that anything less would be manipulated to give the

best possible impression, but look at what his son has done. he's released just two years of tax returns and he intentionally overpaid, not taking more than $2 million in deductions because he knew that a quarter billionaire who pays just 9% in tax couldn't possibly claim to be the champion of every american. and then there was george romney's honesty about vietnam. you see, he originally supported the war, but he changed his mind and told the truth, that this wasn't a good war that america was going to win, but a bad one that the country was going to lose. and those comments proved to be his undoing and his bid for the presidency collapsed though his integrity did not. but with mitt romney it's the exact opposite. instead of trns pearn si, we get secrecy. instead of the truth, we get a bucket full of lies. and given his father's